Charmed
by Kasamyra
Summary: Cassie Black, a young witch from Australia, happens to be excellent at charms. She's had ideas for little inventions all her life, and now that she has moved to London, those inventions might finally see the light of day. Can she learn to balance life as an inventor, a single mom to her two year old son, and now a possible dating life?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Why are we here?" Cassie asked. Looking up at the building proved to be difficult as her eyes were still used to the dark of the night and this place was covered with neon signs.

"Because you promised that you would come out with us once a month," Nicole said, sweeping her long black hair over her shoulder as she eyed up a man standing near the door to the bar.

"Yes, but why are we at a muggle place?" Cassie asked, lowering her voice to a whisper as they approached the door.

"Its more fun," Lisa, the other girl with their group called over her shoulder.

"The music is better," Nicole said, nodding her agreement.

"Come on," Lisa said, grabbing Cassie's wrist and pulling her into the bar.

The music, that had already been loud outside the building, was deafening inside. Cassie was glad Lisa was holding on to her, otherwise she would have been lost for sure.

Cassie didn't mind bars most of the time, but she preferred them when they were less crowded and a little less loud. She hadn't realized that her promise to her friends that she would go out with them at least once a month would be turned on her this way. She had thought she was promising to go out for coffee or a meal as a group, not out to a bar that was almost a club.

"Okay, usual play?" Nicole asked as they approached the bar. Cassie rolled her eyes but nodded anyway.

The three of them had been friends since Cassie was thirteen. They had all attended the same school, until Cassie dropped out when she was sixteen, she had been home schooled after that. Now, at almost nineteen, the three girls had been going out to bars together for as long as they could pull it off. The muggles were easy to confuse, and the wizarding bars weren't very strict on ages.

When they went out, which happened rarely for Cassie since she had other things to do most of the time, they would play a game to decide which of them would buy drinks for the others that night. Cassie usually sat it out since she didn't want to drink much anyway, but tonight she had no obligations, at least, not until noon the next day, so she could allow herself to get a little drunk.

They're way of deciding who pays had been created when all three of them realized that, compared to some other people, they were attractive. There were no real rules to the game, the three of them just had to see who could get the most phone numbers in half an hour. Whoever got the most didn't pay for drinks the whole night.

"Lets go," Lisa said, grinning as she spotted a table full of young men nearby.

"Meet over there in half an hour," Cassie said, pointing to the emptiest corner of the bar. The others nodded and separated. Cassie looked around, spotting a man alone at the bar, and went over to stand next to him. As she got closer, she realized that his clothing was a bit odd. Not outdated really… just a little badly matched. His jeans were a light blue, and the jumper he was wearing was a pale lavender color. Though maybe the colors just looked off because of the dim lighting.

"Hey," she said, making him look up from the drink he had been stirring idly. "I've never been here before, whats good to drink?"

"I have no idea," the man said, his mouth turning up at the corners in an almost smile. "I always have whiskey."

"I'll take a whiskey," Cassie said to the bartender, who had been waiting for her order. "I'm Cassie."

"George," the man said, grinning now. "That's an odd accent, where are you from?"

"Australia," Cassie said, smiling as she leaned towards him a little. "I just moved to London about a month ago so I don't really know anyone here."

"I'm from Ottery St. Catchpole, on the south coast, so I don't really know anyone either," he said, shrugging a little. "I moved here a couple years ago, but I don't really get out much."

"I see," Cassie said, taking a sip of her newly delivered whisky as she pulled out some muggle money to pay for it. "You don't really look old enough to have moved out a couple of years ago."

"Well you don't look old enough to have moved from Australia to London alone either," she said, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"I didn't move alone. Two of my friends came too," she said, looking out to an empty space that had sort of become a dance floor. "There's one of them, the blonde dancing with that guy with the big hair."

"That guy with the big hair is who dragged me out tonight," George said, chuckling. "His name is Lee. I've been waiting for him to get distracted enough that I can leave without being rude."

"Not really one for bars?" She asked, smiling knowingly. "Me neither. They are too loud for my liking."

"I prefer pubs with no dancing," he said in agreement.

"Me too," she said, nodding as she sipped the whiskey. It was good, though a little dull in flavor compared to fire whiskey. "So what do you do?"

"I seem to go out to bars a lot," he replied, and she giggled. "I own a store."

"Wow, that's really neat," she said, genuinely impressed. "I've been looking for a job since I moved here but I can't seem to find anything I really want to do."

"Well what do you want to do?" He asked. She hesitated for a second. The thing she really enjoyed was charms. She was really good at finding new charms to accomplish what she wanted, but she wasn't sure how to say that in a way that a muggle would understand.

"I guess I don't really know yet," she settled for, giving a small shrug. "I'll know when I find it though."

"Well I wish you the best of luck with that," he said, lifting his glass up in a fake toast. She grinned and copied him, finishing off her whiskey.

"Hey, is there any way I could get your phone number?" She asked, spotting her two friends drawing closer to her. There was no way she would win with only one number, but she wanted to look like she had tried anyway.

"I'd love to give you one, but I don't have a telephone," he said, shaking his head a little.

"Really?" She asked, raising a brow. "No phone?"

"Never really needed one," he said, shrugging. "I'm almost never home anyway. And I'm more of a letter writer." Something in the back of her mind lit up at that.

"Let me guess," she said, her voice growing a little more flirty. "You use carrier pigeons to deliver them?"

"Of course not," he said, his voice joking. "We use owls."

"I knew it," she said, lowering her voice and leaning in. "You're a wizard aren't you?"

"What?" He asked, his voice shocked. She frowned, leaning back a little. Maybe her intuition had been wrong. She raised her left hand a little, intending to place a forgetfulness charm, but he leaned in a little. "You're a witch?" He asked, his voice soft even though they weren't likely to be overheard with the loud music pounding. She nodded, lowering her hand.

To anyone glancing at her, it would appear that she was dressed simply, jeans and a long sleeved shirt, but in fact, her left hand was also covered with a thin, tan colored glove that matched her skin tone exactly, thanks to the excellent craftsmanship of the Australian wand maker, Harrison King. She wasn't sure when the idea had been first thought of, but the alternatives to wands had been publicly released about a month before Cassie's sixteenth birthday. She had begged her mother for one, even though they were a little pricey.

Her glove was laced with the thinnest shavings of willow wood, and housed fairy wings over each finger tip and her palm. Using the gloves instead of a wand had led to the need to relearn basic spells with new movements, but as she had begun her homeschooling just after her sixteenth birthday, Cassie'd had plenty of time to play around with her new equipment and she had been able to figure out how to adapt wand movements to use with the glove.

Many people had protested the use of the gloves until they had realized that traditional wands would still be available for those who wanted them. The school Cassie had attended, Pasnonia Academy of Magic, had changed their school supply list to state that a student must have a traditional wand to learn classwork, but if they desired they could bring one of the new glove wands and could learn it in after school lessons.

Cassie personally loved the glove wands. She had adapted to its use easily, and was still finding new ways to perform common spells with it.

"What's school like in Australia? I'd imagine its pretty similar to here," George asked, drawing her focus back to their conversation. Both of them were leaning in now, not wanting to be overheard by the muggles.

"I wouldn't know as I've never been to school here," Cassie said, chuckling. "I was home-schooled for my last three years of school back home. Well, year and a half really but it took me a while to finish."

"Yeah, we left partway through our seventh year, my brother and I," George said, and Cassie frowned, seeing his face fall for a moment, but the look of pain was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"What's the shop you opened?" She asked, hoping for a better description now that they could talk about magic.

"It's a joke shop," he said, grinning. "It's in Diagon Alley, called Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. You should come by sometime."

"I'd love to," Cassie said, grinning. She had only been to the alley one time since moving to London. Lisa and Nicole had wanted to live in Muggle London, and since Cassie couldn't afford to not live with them, she had agreed as well. She had been trying to find a job in the surrounding Muggle area, but it was difficult as she had no work experience in any of those places.

"So what is it you want to do then?" He asked again, correctly assuming her earlier explanation had been for a muggle.

"Well, I'm really good at charms, and not half bad at potion making," she said, grinning. "I'm not really sure what to do with those talents though."

"Have you tried inventing?" George asked, sipping his drink. "Almost everyone I know who is good at charms works with inventing."

"I've played at it a bit," Cassie said, stretching out her right hand so her sleeve pulled up to expose a woven bracelet with a round bit of metal fixed to it. The metal was decorated with small designs of stars. "I have this bracelet that I've charmed to let me know when my- um, when someone is in danger or hurt. It gives me their location so I can apparate near them. It doesn't work if they are inside wards or anything, but it will let me apparate to the last unwarded area they were in. It took me over three months to get the spells just right."

"That is amazing magic," he said, grabbing her wrist to peer at the bracelet. She shivered as his long fingers brushed her skin. "It almost sounds like blood magic."

"It's not," she assured him. She wasn't sure if blood magic was illegal here, but it certainly was where she was from. "It's a little bit like the trace, but I altered that. I wore gloves when I made this and charmed it to bond to the first person to touch it, like a snitch." She traced over the pattern of tiny stars that formed a constellation and smiled softly. "After that I started thinking that it would be a lot more useful if I could somehow get it to take me to wherever that person was, since if they are hurt then they might need help. So I altered a Taboo spell to only activate if the person wearing a linked bracelet was injured or in danger."

"Taboo spells are dark magic," George said, leaning back a little as he finally dropped her wrist.

"Dark magic is only dark if its used to hurt others," Cassie countered. "Besides, I altered the spell." She yanked her sleeve down over the bracelet to shield it from view.

"Don't get me wrong, that's brilliant magic," he said, grinning again. "Just be careful who you tell that to."

"Is it illegal?" She asked, frowning. She would have to remember to get a list of all the laws here to look over.

"No," he said, shrugging. "But we had a war a few years ago, and some problems with Taboo spells. Since then everyone has been extra cautious."

She nodded. They had known about the war in England a couple years ago because the Australian Ministry of Magic had banned all travel to or from Britain in an attempt to prevent the war coming to them. It had worked, or maybe it was just that the people in the war were too focused on each other to want to spread it to other continents.

"Cassie," a female voice cut into their conversation as a heavy arm was draped across Cassie's shoulders. Lisa had clearly not waited to see who won their little game and instead had purchased her own drinks. Quite a few of them if her breath was anything to judge from.

"Lisa," Cassie replied, rolling her eyes.

"Game's off," she said, teetering a little in her place. "I'm going home with that stud over there." Her arm waved so much that Cassie wouldn't have been able to tell who she was pointing to if the man hadn't been walking toward them. It was the same guy from before, George's friend that she had already forgotten he name of. Lisa leaned in to whisper, though her voice was loud enough that anyone within five feet could have heard. "He's a wizard," she said secretively. "I want to test his wand work." She waggled her eyebrows and Cassie rolled her eyes again while George covered a snort with his hand.

"That's nice Lisa," Cassie said. "Have fun. Use protection. Don't get murdered." That was her standard farewell to her friends when they did stupid things.

"I'll be safe," she said, then leaned in farther. "Gimme one of your tags though. I'll be home before dinner."

"Fine, fine," Cassie said, reaching into her jeans pocket to pull out a silver charm on a thin chain. She draped it over Lisa's head, then pushed the girl off her, into the arms of the black man she had been dancing with all night who had been saying something to George. The two took off through the crowd, heading to the door.

"So what's a tag," George said after a moment of slightly awkward silence. Cassie grinned and pulled another necklace from her pocket to hand to him. He looked it over for a moment, then tilted his head in confusion. It looked like a normal necklace, something simple that a girl might wear with casual clothing.

"It's charmed so that I can always find it," she explained, smiling. "We have a system worked out, Lisa, Nicole and I." She waved a hand towards the other end of the bar where her other friend was chatting with a group of girls. "If we split up or go home with someone the others don't know, we take a tag. Then, if we aren't home by the time we said we would be, we can find each other."

"That's… also brilliant," he said, looking over the necklace again. "You really are good at charms. Do you have more of these little things? You could open a shop and sell them."

"Oh, I'm not really a shop owning type of person. I prefer to work behind the scenes," Cassie said, shrugging as she idly played with her long since empty glass.

"Well, we'll have to see about that," he said, grinning. She looked up at him, confused. "I just so happen to know a shop owner who might be willing to sell these things in his shop."

"I thought you ran a joke shop," she said, confused.

"I do," he said. "But right now there's a pretty big market for protective enchantments and things like these," he held up the necklace. "And I never pass up a good business opportunity when I see one."

"You're serious?" She asked, her eyes wide.

"Completely," he said, contradicting his wide grin. "Can you meet me tomorrow morning at my shop in Diagon Alley? Say, around nine?"

"Sure," Cassie said, her mind a little blank. She had certainly not expected this.

"Bring anything you have like this," he said, handing the necklace back to her. And any plans you have that you haven't made yet, and I'll see what we can try selling, if you want."

"Definitely," she said, smiling now. She had never thought about selling the things she had made. Most of them she had only even tried to make because it was useful to her at the time. She did have notebooks full of ideas though. Hundreds of things she had thought of over the last three years of homeschooling that she hadn't tried to make because she was already so busy with the school work her mother assigned her, not to mention the reason she had dropped out in the first place. She frowned for a moment, wondering if she should tell George about that part of her life if they were going to be working together, but then she shook that thought away. It wasn't really any of his business at the moment.

"Great," he said, getting to his feet. "I'd better get going if I'm meeting a potential business partner in the morning," he said, chuckling. "It was nice to meet you though. What did you say your name was?"

"Cassie," she repeated, shaking his offered hand. "Cassie Black."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The next morning, Cassie woke to a loud clatter from the kitchen, followed by a low groan.

"Nicole?" She called through her open bedroom door. "You okay?"

"Shhh," her friend called back, and Cassie chuckled, climbing out of bed.

"Do you want me to make you some of my hangover tea?" Cassie asked, wrapping her robe around her as she left her room. Nichole was bent over the kitchen island, her head clutched in her hands.

"Mmm," she groaned, which Cassie took to mean yes. She set the kettle to boiling and got out a mug, then spooned the special mixture of tea leaves that did a very good job of lessening the effects of a hangover.

Within minutes, both girls were sitting at the table, sipping steaming mugs of tea. Cassie had only had the one drink last night, but having some hangover tea wouldn't hurt.

"What would I do without you," Nichole muttered a moment later, leaning back in her chair.

"Be late to work, waste away from malnutrition, not to mention you would be bored out of your mind," Cassie replied immediately, grinning. "Plus you would sleep in far too often."

"That's right," Nicole said, chuckling. "Speaking of the little demon, where is he?"

"My mum has him till noon," Cassie said, smiling a little. "She hasn't seen him since we moved here so she was excited to keep him over night."

Cassie's mother had thrown a fit when she had told her where she wanted to move. Her mother still believed that England was unsafe, but after hours of lecturing and arguing, her mother had stated that if Cassie was moving to London, then so would she, if only to keep the three girls out of trouble. Cassie knew that her mother saw the other two as daughters, especially since neither of the other girls were close to their own families.

"So what are your plans for this morning?" Nicole asked, draining her cup. Cassie stood automatically to refill it.

"You know that guy I was talking to last night at the bar?" Cassie asked, pouring Nicole another cup then refilling the kettle with more water. "Well he owns a shop in Diagon Alley and he said he might want to sell some of the things I've made."

"That's awesome," Nicole said, smiling as she held her tea in her hands to warm them up. "I've always said the things you make are brilliant."

"You have," Cassie agreed, grinning as she finished off her own tea. "I'm meeting him at nine. Do you want me to make breakfast?"

"No thanks, I'm not really hungry," Nicole said, shrugging. "I'll just have some fruit. Do you have any nice robes to wear?"

"Not really," Cassie said, shrugging. She knew that the magic population of Britain preferred robes, but the Australian community had adapted to wearing muggle clothes at all times, even the most traditional pureblood families only wore robes when they were visiting other countries.

"You can borrow one of mine," Nicole said, jumping to her feet. Evidently, two cups of hangover tea had returned the girl to her usual, too hyper self. "I just got a set of light grey dress robes that match your eyes perfectly."

Cassie sighed, but followed her into her room across the open kitchen space, the living room, and to the other end of the long apartment. She knew it would do no good to protest the outfit. Besides, Cassie liked dressing up sometimes. All the nice clothing she had owned had gotten either stained or torn. The joys of having a small child in the house.

Cassie didn't know who the father was, but she wouldn't change a thing about how her life had turned out so far. Sure, it was difficult to become a mother at sixteen, but with the help and support of her mother, they had managed. More than managed, really. Cassie had been able to complete her NEWT's, if a year later than normal, and Orion, her son, was happy and healthy. At two years of age, the boy was a handful and a half, but Nicole and Lisa adored the child and they were always happy to help take care of him. It all worked out.

"This is beautiful," Cassie said, smoothing down the soft fabric of the dress robes a moment later as she stood in front of Nicole's mirror.

"It suits you," Nicole agreed, grinning. "Now go get those black flats you wore last week and I'll figure out what to do with your hair." Cassie darted back across the apartment to her own room and hunted out the shoes, then was back in Cassie's room in the next moment.

"Can't I just leave it down?" Cassie asked, fingering a strand of golden hair. It was exactly the same shade as her mothers hair, though it fell in tight curls, courtesy of her father.

She could remember very little of her father. Her had died when she was eight, which was what had prompted her mother to move from Northern England to Australia in the first place.

"No way," Nicole said, using her fingers to brush out any tangles that had appeared over night. "You need to look like you actually tried to be presentable. How about a loose braid over the shoulder?"

"Sure," Cassie said, sitting on the edge of Nicole's bed so the other girl could fix her hair.

"You look nice," Nicole said at last, smiling at Cassie. "Do you have all your things ready to go?"

"I put them together last night," Cassie said, going back across the apartment into her own room, Nicole following behind.

"What are you showing him?" Nicole said, plopping herself down on Cassie's unmade bed.

"Well I told him about the tag's and my bracelet yesterday, so I have all my notes about both of those things," Cassie said, touching a small pile of papers on her dresser. "And then there's the rings," she said, fishing a handful of silver rings out of a cloth bag. The rings had been an idea that started during the Wizarding War in London. Cassie's mother had forced her to learn how to cast a patronus charm, one of the only charms she had ever had trouble with, but it was necessary at the time. Her mother had been so worried that the war would come to them that she wanted to make sure that Cassie could send messages if she needed to.

Cassie, after learning the patrons charm and how to make her silver glowing hawk speak, had set about inventing something that was easier to use and didn't require a wand. She had settled on rings, because they were small and easy to wear. She had her own thin silver band sitting on her right thumb. All she had to do to send a short message to anyone else wearing the ring was touch it to her lips, then say the name of the person she wished to contact followed by her message. The other person's ring would then burn ice cold for a moment to let them know they had a message, and they could listen to it by pressing the ring to their lips.

The charms had taken quite a while to work out, first she had to figure out how to get them to work without a wand present, then she had to charm each one so that it would only play the message for the intended recipient. She had finished them almost two years after starting them, and they still weren't perfected, in her eyes. But still, she wore one, her mother had one, and both Nicole and Lisa had them. She had tried to get Orion to wear one, but he could never remember how to use them, even though she told him how every day, and besides, he couldn't seem to keep the thing on anyway.

"What about the hair clips?" Nicole asked as Cassie tucked her notes and the various jewelry items into her purse, which she had charmed to be weightless and carried an undetectable extending charm.

"I don't think that's quite what he's looking for," she said, eyeing the simple silver hair clips. They carried a charm that, once placed into someones hair, they would hold it in that style until the clip was removed. That one had been one of her earliest inventions, and a gift for her mother. "Do you think I should take it?"

"Definitely," Nicole said. "Those things are a life saver honestly."

"Alright," Cassie said, dropping a few of the clips into her bag as well.

"You remember how to get into the alley?" Nicole asked, leading them back out to the living room.

"Yep," Cassie said. The girls had been told where the alley was before coming to London by Cassie's mother, but she had failed to mention how to get into it from the back of the pub. Nicole had been the one who finally went inside to ask the bartender, who had grumbled the whole time, but Cassie had watched carefully as he simply tapped a certain brick in the wall, causing an archway to open up. "It's two bricks up from the broken one, then three across to the right."

"Good," Nicole said, grinning. "I work at one, but Lisa should be home for dinner."

"We'll save a plate for you," Cassie promised as she left the flat.

Nicole had begun working as a healer in training at St. Mungo's only three weeks before, but she loved the job so far. Lisa, who's parent's had given her quite a bit of money after she left school, didn't really feel the need to find a job yet, and the others didn't really care since she payed her share of the bills and that meant someone was always home to watch Orion. In return for the sometimes impromptu babysitting, Cassie had taken over the kitchen and meal preparation. Nicole, who was a little bit of a neat freak, kept the place clean and orderly for the most part. Lisa did all the shopping, since she had the most free time. It was the same balance the three girls had come up with when they had attended school together, for the most part.

When the three girls had been assigned as room mates for their time at school, at first they had argued and fought all the time. Finally, after one particularly harsh yelling match, Cassie, who had always been the most calm, got the other two girls to sit down and talk maturely about why they were so angry.

The three of them had ended up staying up all night talking, and after that, they were practically inseparable. Cassie made sure everyone got their homework done, Nicole made sure everything was neat, and Lisa made sure the other two girls had some fun once in a while. In their later years at school, Lisa had forced them to go out to parties at least once a month, and in the end, it was at one of these parties where Cassie had gotten so drunk that she couldn't remember who she had hooked up with. Orion was the result of that, and it was the end of Cassie's wild days.

Cassie walked the half mile from their apartment building to the Leaky Cauldron, ignoring the glances from muggles on the street who were probably wondering why a young woman was wearing such an odd looking dress. She slipped through the pub unnoticed, and tapped the correct brick with the index finger of her left hand, then watched as the archway grew in front of her.

She wasn't exactly sure where George's shop was, but he had said it stood out from the others, so she set off at a quick pace down the alley. It was just beginning to fill with people on their daily errands, so she hurried, not wanting to be caught in the crowd.

When she spotted the building, she laughed, and was immediately sure that this was George's shop even though she was too far away to read the words on the glass. It was by far the most brightly colored building in the alley, and even though the blinds were drawn behind the windows, there were a few people milling about outside, waiting for the place to open she assumed. She went up the stairs and knocked on the door, feeling foolish as the people waiting nearby watched her.

Within moments, the door flew open and George was there, grinning down at her.

"Good morning," he said, pulling her inside.

"I see you had no ill effects from last night," she said, chuckling as he led her behind the front counter.

"Our apothecary sells this amazing hangover remedy potion," he said, laughing. "You should try it."

"I don't usually drink enough to need one," she said, smiling. "And besides, we have a tea that works wonders."

"Okay, this is my brother Ron," George said, leading her into the back room. "And my sister Ginny. Both of them have been helping with the shop so I figured they should be here to see what they think of your inventions. Guys, this is Cassie Black."

"Hello," Cassie said, waving to the two other red heads who were sitting around a table.

"Hi," Ginny said, getting to her feet to shake Cassie's hand. Ron nodded her way and lifted a hand in greeting. "So George says you make safety charms?"

"Sort of," Cassie said, taking a seat at the chair that was obviously left for her. "I only have a few things actually completed, but I have notes for a few more. I just haven't had time to work on them yet as I only just finished my NEWT's last spring."

"You look a bit old to just be finishing school," Ron said, and Cassie saw Ginny move as though she were kicking him under the table. Her suspicions were confirmed when Ron winced and glared at his sister.

"I am a bit old I guess. I turn nineteen in a month," Cassie said, trying to suppress a laugh. "I was home-schooled for my last year and a half of school and it took a while to finish because I had some family stuff to deal with at the same time."

"So what did you get on your NEWT's then?" Ginny asked curiously, only realizing that she might have sounded rude after she had already spoken. Cassie smiled at her to let her know she wasn't offended.

"I received Outstanding in Potions, Charms, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes, and Exceeds Expectations in Astronomy, Magizoology, Defensive Spells, and Herbology, and a Acceptable in Transfiguration and History of Magic," Cassie said, listing off the grades she had received back only a few weeks before they had moved here.

"What's Magizoology?" Ron asked, frowning.

"It's the study of magical creatures," Cassie said, tilting her head to one side. "Don't you have that here?"

"Oh, yeah," he said, shrugging. "We call it something else though."

"So anyway, can you show us the things you have finished, and then we can look over your other ideas and see what will sell," George said, returning the subject to the original purpose she was there.

"Right, of course," she said, reaching into her purse and pulling out various papers and random bits of jewelry.

"Is that an undetectable extension charm?" Ron asked, surprising Cassie into looking up.

"Yeah," she said, smiling. "It was really difficult to get right. I had to practice for hours."

"My friend Hermione has a bag like that," he said.

"Hermione Granger?" Cassie asked, forgetting the papers now. "Does she happen to be in Australia right now?"

"You know her?" Ginny asked this time.

"Yeah, she stayed with me and my mother for a few weeks, about a moth ago," Cassie said. "My mom is friends with our minister and he said that Hermione needed a place to stay while she looked for her parents. She showed me this charm actually."

"Small world," George said, shaking his head a little.

"Well actually she's sort of the reason we moved here, my friends and I," Cassie said, laughing. "She wouldn't stop talking about London the whole time she stayed with us. My friends got a little obsessed and convinced me to move here with them. Is Hermione around? I'd like to say hello."

"She's working now," Ron said. "But I'll tell her you're in London. She can owl you."

"Great," Cassie said, turning back to her things. She was glad that the brown haired girl had returned home because that meant she had been able to find her parents. "Now, I call these tags." She began, and went through each item she had brought, explaining what they did and how they worked and the magic behind them. The three ginger's seemed impressed with her spell work, and even more curious about her wand glove, which she had to explain to them once they had noticed it.

Ron and Ginny left after half an hour to open the store and help the customers, but Cassie spent a couple hours going through various notes and things she had thought of with George.

"Okay, lets start with selling the rings, since you have quite a few of them made already," George said. "And we can put out a few of those necklace charms too, but lets hold off on the bracelets for now, since they are so difficult to make. I like this idea you have here of parchments charmed to send messages between them."

"I thought of that while I was in school," Cassie said, flipping through her notes to find the ones he was talking about. "I figured it would be an easier way to pass notes, you know, so you don't get caught. I was working through the problem of how to get them so that only the owner can read the notes when I got pulled out of school and after that I didn't see much use for them."

"Well we love causing mayhem at school," George said, chuckling. "If you can get it to work, I think they would be a great seller here. And if you wanted to make a few more of those hair comb things, I think we could make a display for them next to our love potions."

"So you will actually sell my things?" Cassie asked hopefully.

"Definitely," George said, grinning. "I'll have a contract written for you to look over later tonight. We have a workroom back here that we use for inventing new product. It's warded against mistakes or spells going wrong and things like that, so you can use it if you'd like."

"Oh good," Cassie said with a sigh. "Half the reason I haven't worked on anything recently is that I don't have anywhere to work that's safe."

"Well you can use the workroom any time you want," George said. "And I know you said you were looking for a job, and I'm not really sure how quickly any of these things will start selling, so if you want we can train you to work in the shop in your spare time."

"That would be great," Cassie said, nodding.

"Awesome, when can you start?" George asked. "It would be great if we could get those charmed parchments before school starts next month, but if not we can release them around Christmas time."

"I think I could figure it out by next month," Cassie said, frowning in thought. "I only need to work out a few kinks."

"Great," George said. "After that we can start you working in the shop then. Did you want to meet later so I can give you the contract to read or should I just owl it to you?"

"I don't think I'll have time later today," Cassie said, thinking that it had been quite a while since she had spent time with Orion. "I'm sorry. Could you just post it?"

"Sure," George said, smiling. "I'll see you later then."

"Thank you so much," she said, following him from the back room. The shop was crowded now, and George was quickly approached by a customer with questions about a product. He raised a hand in farewell and turned to the man as Cassie left the building.

She apparated to her mothers house, landing in the back garden that was shielded from the view of the surrounding houses by a wooden fence, and more than a few enchantments and wards.

"Mommy!" The high pitched yell came to Cassie's ears, followed by the sound of running feet, a slamming door, and her mothers call of "Orion! No running in the house" before Cassie was struck by a weight around her legs, nearly making her fall backwards. She laughed and hoisted the small boy into her arms, kissing his cheek as she did so.

"Hello, Ri, have you been good for Nana?" Cassie asked, walking back up the stairs to the porch, then through the back door.

"Yes!" The boy exclaimed, wriggling to be put down. Cassie obliged. "We had pancakes for breakfast and then we made cookies. I helped."

"I bet you did," Cassie said, chuckling. "Can I have one?"

"I'll get one," he said, running back up the hallway. Cassie followed, still laughing. The boy had flour in his blonde curls, and as Cassie approached the kitchen, she wondered how he had only gotten it in his hair, since the whole room was covered in puffs of white and open bags of other things, and melted butter on one counter top.

"Did Nana help you at all or did you make these all by yourself?" Cassie asked, waving a hand over the sink to start the dishes cleaning themselves. She made another gesture, making all the flour lift off the floor and make its way to the trash.

"He did all the work, I just told him what to add and did the measuring," her mother said, coming into the room just as Orion climbed onto a two step stool to grab a cookie from the counter. He turned, guiltily, to watch her, evidently having been told before not to touch the cookies. "You can give one to mommy, but no more for you."

"How many has he eaten?" Cassie asked, waving her hand over the open bags, which began to seal themselves up and return to their places.

"About three that I've seen," the woman said, with a sharp glance at the boy, who had half of a cookie in his mouth as he brought a whole one to his mother. "But probably a few more I didn't see."

"Thanks for looking after him, mum," Cassie said. "I got a job today. Someone who owns a shop in Diagon Alley liked my tag necklaces and rings and agreed to sell them."

"That's wonderful," she said, smiling. Cassie ruffled the boys hair.

"Ready to go home, Ri?" Cassie asked. "We have to make dinner for Aunt Lisa."

"He hasn't had lunch yet," Her mother said. "We were about to make sandwiches, but he says he's not hungry."

"It's probably all the cookies," Cassie said with a sigh. "Go get your things," she said, resting a hand on the boy's head.

"No running!" The older woman called after him as he disappeared up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It took Cassie nearly a half hour to leave her mothers house. Orion would suddenly remember something he had forgotten to pack into his little backpack, or Cassie's mum would start up a conversation. In the end, Cassie managed to apparate home with one small boy, one backpack, and a bag full of two dozen cookies. They weren't half bad seeing as the person who made them couldn't see above the kitchen counters.

"Go wash your hands," Cassie said as they appeared in the hallway leading to their flat and unlocked the door. Orion ran to the bathroom, Cassie didn't bother telling him not to run inside, he never listened anyway.

She put his things in his room, then went to the kitchen to start pulling things out for dinner. It was only just past one, but she had bought all the things for lasagna, and that would take a few hours to put together.

"Can I watch a movie?" Orion asked, following her from the fridge to the stove. "The one with the animals? Please?"

"I suppose so," Cassie said, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel and walking across the large open space to the part they had designated as a living room. It had taken her a few weeks to learn how to use the television when they had come here. She'd never had one while at school, and her mother had never wanted one, so it was new to her. She clicked on the power button and found the movie Orion wanted to watch at least once a day. It was some sort of cartoon where the characters were animals. She popped it into the black box that would play it, she couldn't remember what Nicole had called it.

The afternoon passed quickly while Cassie made dinner and Orion sat in the living room either watching the movie again, or playing with his toys. At three, she put him down for his nap. Around four, Cassie finally put the assembled lasagna into the over to bake for forty minutes, then went about setting the table for the three of them who would be there.

With twenty minutes to go and no sign of Lisa, Cassie held her thumb ring to her lips and spoke clearly.

"Lisa Turres, dinner's ready in twenty minutes," she said to the ring, which flashed cool for a moment, then returned to normal.

"Orion!" She called a moment later. "Dinner."

He came into the room, walking for once, and yawned.

"Do you want milk or juice?" She asked, getting cups out of the cupboard. She filled two with water, for Lisa and herself, then made sure the third was the kind that could fit a lid and straw.

"Juice please," he said, his voice tired. He must not have slept much during his nap. Or maybe it was a sugar crash from all the cookies he had eaten that morning. She filled the cup with apple juice then secured the lid and set it on the table in the spot he would sit at, which was a chair with a booster seat on it so he could be high enough to see over the table.

Cassie put together a salad, then popped some quick bake rolls into the oven and set out salad dressing and butter before pulling the lasagna out to set for a few minutes.

Ten minutes later, everything was on the table, and Cassie was just beginning to worry about Lisa when she heard a pop in the hallway and went over to open the door.

"Good morning," Cassie said, raising a brow at Lisa's very disheveled appearance.

"Shove off," Lisa said, rolling her eyes, but she was grinning. "Do I have time to change?"

"Yep, but hurry, everything done and Orion missed lunch," she said, turning back into the building.

"Mommy there's an owl at the window," Orion said, pointing to the large window in the kitchen. Cassie went over to look, and sure enough, there was a brown barn owl there, perched on the outside sill. Cassie pulled the window in, glad the apartment was on the fourth floor so the muggles probably wouldn't notice the bird. It hopped a few steps into the place, then patiently held out its leg, where there was a thick envelope tied. She freed the letter, then went into the living room to the jar of owl treats kept over the fireplace, bringing two back for him. The owl hooted, ate the treats, then took off out the window, which Cassie closed even though it was still nice out with the sun going down.

"Who's writing to you?" Lisa asked, coming back into the room in new clothes as she tied her dark hair up behind her.

Lisa's parents had moved to Australia from India when she was very little, and she carried many Indian features. Tanned skin, very dark, silky hair, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. She was really very pretty, even in her casual 'laze about' clothes she was wearing now; a too large t-shirt and some black lounge pants.

"Well, that guy I was talking to yesterday offered to sell some of my things in his shop in Diagon Alley. He said he would send over a contract this evening for me to look over," Cassie said, breaking open the top of the envelop to pull out a few pages of official looking documents as she took a seat at the table.

"I'll look over them with you if you want," Lisa offered. Her father was part of the Magical Parliment back home, which was the equivalent of the wizengamot in England, and over the years Lisa had picked up quite a bit about wizarding law. Cassie smiled at her gratefully.

"Let's eat first," Cassie said, setting the papers aside. She carefully moved a small amount of the food onto Orion's plate, instructing him not to eat it until it was cooler, then she buttered a roll for him and gave him a few pieces of lettuce. He hadn't quite gotten to the stage where he hated all vegetables.

Cassie and Lisa both ate quickly, and afterword Cassie waved a hand, making the used dishes fly to the sink and begin washing themselves. She pulled the papers out of the envelop again, setting them between her and Lisa while Orion made a mess of his food, spreading it all over his plate before any amount of it finally ended up in his mouth. Cassie read over each page, then handed them to Lisa to look through.

The two girls were silent for a moment, then suddenly Lisa snorted, holding onto the last page.

"Did you see this?" She asked, pointing to the last paragraph above the signature lines, which George had already signed. Cassie glanced over it, then chuckled.

"How creative," she said, reading the two lines of text again.

"It says optional," Lisa pointed out, raising a brow at Cassie, who's cheeks turned a little red.

"Whats opinal?" Orion asked around a mouthful of bread.

"Optional," Cassie corrected. "It means you can do something, but you don't have to if you don't want to."

"Do you want to?" Lisa asked, waggling her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

"Want to what?" Orion asked, interrupting them again.

"Go on a date," Lisa answered, chuckling. "Somebody asked your mom out on a date."

"What's a date?" The boy asked, forgetting his food for a moment.

"It when two people go out somewhere and do something fun to get to know each other better," Cassie said, shaking her head a little.

"If the date goes well, they go on more of them, and sometimes they have babies together," Lisa added, grinning at Cassie as she blushed again.

"That will not be happening," Cassie said, pushing back from the table to put the leftovers away.

"Well, not on purpose anyway," Lisa said in an undertone. Cassie threw a roll at her, then laughed as it hit the other girl on the forehead. Orion had nodded and gone back to his eating, no longer caring about the subject.

"'Clause 14.3, (optional)'" Lisa began reading from the page in an overly loud voice. Cassie ignored her and scooped a piece of the lasagna onto a plate for Nicole to eat later. "'The potential business partner is required, if they agree, to attend a meeting antecedent to employment to acquire addition knowledge of aforementioned potential business partner in hopes of appraising compatibility in the work place. Said meeting will commence at approximately seven in the evening on the date of July the thirtieth of this year.' Will you go?"

"I dunno," Cassie said, shrugging.

"Come on, this was really creative, you have to," Lisa said, whining a little.

"I haven't told him about…" Cassie said, nodding her head to Orion, who was now using his fingers to tear the remaining lettuce leaves into small strips on his plate.

"So?" Lisa asked, getting up from the table as well. "When's the last time you were on a date, Cas?"

"About a year ago?" Cassie said, phrasing it like a question because she couldn't really remember clearly when it had been. "And he ditched as soon as I mentioned a kid. So did the three before that."

"Well you can't just give up dating," Lisa said, frowning.

"Why not?" Cassie asked, setting the plate she had fixed for Nicole on the table and placing a stasis charm on it to keep it fresh.

"Because you don't want to get old and die alone," Lisa said, rolling her eyes as she pulled the now clean dishes from the sink and muttered a drying charm under her breath, then put them into their proper cupboards.

"I won't die alone," Cassie said, rolling her eyes. "I'll get a few cats."

"Cassie, you are going on this date," Lisa said, hands on her hips. "That's final."

"He is very handsome," Cassie said, smiling slightly and trying to convince herself it was a good idea to go. "And really well built. I think he used to play quidditch or something. And he's really smart, you should see the things he's created in that shop."

"Oh you are so going to say yes," Lisa said, grinning.

"Can you watch Ri tomorrow night?" Cassie asked, frowning down at the papers on the table. "If not I can ask my mom."

"Nah, I'll be home anyway," she said, handing a damp towel to Cassie. "The rest of the contract looks really good. He only want's 10% as a sellers fee, that's way lower than some places would charge. I think you should sign it."

"I think so too," Cassie said, using the towel to wipe the food bits off of Orion's hands and face. The rest of the contract had been much more commonly worded than the date clause had been. She assumed he had done that on purpose, to be funny. He outlined everything she could think of and a few extra things she hadn't. "Come on, time for bed," she said, lifting the boy from his seat and walking towards his bedroom.

She got him into his pajamas and into be within ten minutes, and he was yawning continuously as she tucked him in.

"Which story do you want to hear tonight?" She asked, lifting a hand to the many thin books on his bookshelf.

"Babbity Rabbity," he said, grinning. She sighed, but grabbed the story from the end of the shelf. He asked for this one at least four times a week. She sat down next to him on the bed and began to read the story. The moral was that you shouldn't bully anyone just because they look funny because it will hurt their feeling. Orion liked it because he liked rabbits, and the pictures in the book were enchanted to move as they flipped through the pages, so he could follow along with the story as she read it to him.

Today however, he was asleep before she had finished half the book. She closed it, leaned over to kiss his forehead, then put the book back on the shelf and left the room, turning out the lights behind her but leaving the door cracked open so light from the kitchen fell across his feet.

"I'm going to sign it," Cassie said as she grabbed the papers from the table and went into the living room. Lisa nodded at her choice without looking away from the television.

"I still get surprised by how realistic these muggles can be without using magic," Lisa said, pointing at the telly, where a large explosion and plane crash had just happened. Cassie chuckled and nodded. Lisa had come from an all wizarding family as well, so Nicole, who's mother was a muggleborn, had been the only one who knew how to use all the muggle things in the apartment when they had first moved in.

Cassie read over the papers again, then scribbled her name at the bottom of the last one, grinning at the date clause again, then she frowned. She wanted to be home at eight for Orion's bedtime, but she didn't really want to tell George about the child yet, in case he ran away like the others had done. She would tell him at the end of it, because it never worked out to keep secrets, but she wanted to enjoy a nice time out first. It had been so long since her last date.

She scribbled another note on a piece of parchment, saying she would prefer to move their 'meeting' up to six instead of seven. Then she went into Nicole's room to borrow her owl to send the papers back to George.

His reply came as she was getting ready for bed. Lisa had fallen asleep on the couch watching some muggle soap opera show, and Cassie had used the couch afghan to cover her up even though the apartment was quite warm from the outside heat. She settled into her bed, waving her hand at the light silently to turn it off.

An owl pecked against her bedroom window a few minutes later, and it took Cassie a few moments to realize what it was, but then she jumped from her bed to let the owl in. She untied the letter, then carried the owl back across the apartment to Nicole's room where it had a perch and food.

Back in her room, she unfolded the note, as it wasn't in an envelope or sealed in any way.

 _Cassie,_

 _Six is fine, I'll meet you at the Leaky Cauldron (don't worry, we aren't staying there)._

 _Dress nice, we are going to a muggle restaurant._

 _George_

She chuckled at his words, tucking the note underneath a book on her nightstand as she climbed into bed.

She must have been tired, since she didn't hear Nicole come home from work at eleven. She did, however, hear her door creak open in the middle of the night.

"Mommy?" Came a small whisper. Cassie sat up in bed, blinking against the faint kitchen light that was left on at all times.

"Orion?" She said, stifling a yawn. "Why are you awake?"

"Their are monsters under my bed again, I heard them this time," he said, closing the door behind him.

"Come sleep in my bed," Cassie said, gesturing for him to come over. He did, after closing the door, and she lifted him over her so he was between her and the wall. "We will get rid of the monsters tomorrow okay?"

"Okay," he said, climbing under her blankets. He scooted over until he was laying right next to her and curled up into her side. She smiled and smoothed his hair back as he began to fall asleep again.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Cassie, for once in her life, woke up before Orion. Which meant that everything in the kitchen was as it had been left, and no loud noises were coming from some small corner of the house where the child had tried to hide or play.

Cassie slipped out of bed carefully, making sure the blankets were completely covering Orion where he was curled up with his favorite stuffed animal, a rabbit, on the other side of her bed. She left her door open a little as she went into the kitchen and put on a kettle of water for tea, then she began mixing together the things needed for pancakes and cut up some fruit to go with it. She always made enough for all four of them, that way if the others wanted any, it was there, and if not, it could be eaten tomorrow.

It was almost seven by the time anyone else got up.

"Where's Ri?" Nicole asked, coming out of her room with a yawn. Lisa had gotten up from the couch sometime during the night and disappeared into her room which was next to Nicole's. She usually slept in the latest since she usually stayed up the latest.

"In my room sleeping," Cassie said, sliding an empty plate in front of Nicole so she could take some of the pancakes.

"Monsters again?" Nicole asked, using her fork to scoop two pancakes into her plate.

"Yep," Cassie said, shaking her head. "He'll grow out of it."

"You should make a light for him," Nicole said. "Like the ones at school."

Cassie frowned in though as she cleaned up from her breakfast making. Their school had used charmed gems of some kind, she had never really payed attention to them during her time there. The stones at school were charmed to automatically light up when someone came into the room it was in if it was dark out, and they were bright and steady.

"I'll have to figure out what they are made out of," Cassie said, sitting at the table with her tea.

"I hear you have a date tonight?" Nicole asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, at six," Cassie said, smiling. "It's been a while since I've been on a date."

"Do you really think it's a good idea to go out with someone you work with now?" Nicole asked, finishing off her pancakes.

"Don't tell her that," Lisa said, surprising the two girls at the table. "She needs to go out and have some fun."

"I'm going," Cassie said. "I already said I would, and I'm kind of excited now."

"Do you know where you are going?" Lisa asked, taking Nicole's used plate and putting some pancakes on it for herself.

"Somewhere muggle," Cassie said, shrugging. "Not really sure. He said dress nice."

"What will you wear?" Nicole asked, her eyes gleaming.

"I was thinking that blue sundress," Cassie said. "You remember, that one I wore when we went shopping our first day here?"

"Ooh that will be good," Lisa said. "And some cute sandals. Not those black ones you always wear."

"They are comfortable," Cassie said, shrugging. When she was younger, before Orion came along, she had cared about her outfits and shoes as much as the other two girls had. After having a baby, however, she had decided that some things were just more important than how you looked. Speaking of babies, Cassie turned her head toward her room hearing the patter of small feet. The next moment her door was opened and Orion came out, rubbing his eyes.

"Come have breakfast," Cassie said to him, gesturing him over as she stood. Orion was not a morning person. He would wake up early, but he was sluggish till about ten. He walked over to her and held his arms up. She lifted him, kissed his cheek, then set him carefully into his raised chair. She gave him a pancake, using her own fork to tear it into smaller pieces, then she put a small amount of syrup on his plate. None of the three girls liked the stuff, but Orion wouldn't eat pancakes unless he had the sugary stuff. He slowly set about using his fork to move the pieces into the syrup, then into his mouth. Cassie smoothed his curly hair away from his face.

"So what's on the agenda today?" Nicole asked, sipping the tea Cassie had poured for her. This was a daily occurrence most of the time. The three of them would spend a few minutes over breakfast talking about what they were doing that day to make sure that someone was always with Orion, and everything that needed to be done got finished.

"I'm going to shower then head to the store," Lisa said, yawning again. "We need milk and fruit and we've been out of that 'awake' tea for a week now."

"I have a list," Cassie said, getting up and going over to the fridge. She had tried to get the others to use the list too, but they preferred to remember on their own, which only worked about half the time. She scooped up the jar full of coins as well, bringing both back to the table.

At the beginning of each month, all three of them would put money into the 'food and things' fund, which was actually just a jar shaped like a frog that one of them had brought home from a thrift shop their first day here.

"I'm running low on pepper up potion," Nicole said. She got sick the most often, so she had peen put in charge of keeping the potions, though Cassie usually brewed them. "And our stock of blood replenishing potion is almost gone after the last time Orion cut his leg."

"I'll write you a list of ingredients to get from the apothecary," Cassie said, pulling out a muggle pen to scribble down what she needed.

"I go into work in about an hour," Nicole added, getting back to the subject. "I'll be home around four."

"I have some research to do," Cassie said. "I'll be home all day."

"I'll be back for lunch," Lisa said. "And I'm watching mini you this evening." She ruffled Orion's hair from her seat. He batted her hand away, scowling. She stuck her tongue out at him and he giggled, copying the gesture. Cassie smiled at them, returning to the sink to get a towel damp, then going over to Orion to wipe off his sticky hands and face.

"My mum says she wants to see you both soon," Cassie said. "She misses you."

"I went over for tea just last week," Lisa said, laughing. "We will have to go over for dinner or something, all of us together."

"I'll write her, maybe it would be easier to invite her over here," Nicole said, getting to her feet.

"Maybe tomorrow night?" Cassie said, picking Orion up out of his chair and sending all the now empty plates to the sink to wash themselves.

"I'm off tomorrow," Nicole said. Lisa nodded her agreement.

"Great," Cassie said. "I'll make roasted chicken and potatoes."

"Alright, lets get you dressed," Cassie said to the boy who was leaning his head against her shoulder now. She carried him into his room and set him on the bed, then turned to his dresser to find something for him to wear.

"Mommy," he began, and she turned to see him laying on his stomach, head hanging off the bed to look underneath it. "Where do monsters come from? Why do they go away in the daytime?"

"Monsters come from your imagination," Cassie said, walking over to him to pull off the pajamas he was wearing. "The more you think about them the bigger they get. If you stop thinking about them, they go away."

"So they only come at night time because I think about them?" He asked, obediently holding his arms above his head so she could pull the shirt on.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "At night it's dark so you can't see well, which makes you hear better. So when you hear things you aren't used to hearing, your imagination comes up with an answer for what made the noise. Usually it's something normal that made the sound, but it's dark, so you can't tell. Then you start thinking that it's monsters making the noise."

"So the monsters are real?" He asked, his eyes wide as he looked up at her.

"The monsters are only in your head," she said, smiling as she tapped his forehead. "They won't hurt you, and the less you think about them, the faster they will go away."

"I think I can do that," he said, nodding fervently.

"Good," she said, grinning. "Now, what are we going to do today?"

"Can we go to the park?" He asked, his eyes lighting up as he jumped off the bed.

"Sure," she said, following him out of his room. "We can go this afternoon, that's when your friends will be there."

There was a park about three blocks from their apartment that they had found while walking their first week there. The park was well set up, in her opinion. The play equipment for the bigger kids was on one corner of the park, and there was a wide grassy playing field in between it and the equipment for the younger kids, so that the younger kids wouldn't try to go on the bigger things.

Orion had made a few muggle friends there over the course of their visits. Cassie couldn't remember the names of the kids, and many of their mothers refused to talk to her once they had learned that she was Orion's mother, not his older sister or nanny. They might have tried to keep their kids away too, but Orion was very charming and very cute, with his blonde curly hair, green eyes, and dimpled smile.

"Can I watch the telly?" Orion asked, running back into the kitchen where Cassie was still standing.

"Sure," she said, making to follow him.

"I'll put it on for him," Nicole called from the other room. Cassie could hear the water running form the bathroom, indicating Lisa was in the shower and hadn't left for the store yet. Cassie added bread to their list, then went into her own room to get dressed for the day. She pulled out her notes and a few experimental charms books, placing everything on the table in the kitchen, which she then used a hover charm to move across the room so that she would be able to see into the living room and keep an eye of Orion, who was now sitting in front of the couch watching a cartoon show.

"I'm heading out," Nicole called a moment later. She was dressed in her healer trainee robes, white with bright blue trim.

"Bye, have fun," Cassie said, settling herself in at the table.

Lisa left half an hour later, and Cassie spent the entire morning refreshing herself with her notes on the parchments. Perhaps the idea would be easier carried out with muggle note books? She would have to ask Lisa to get some next time she went shopping. She frowned, then glanced down at her ring and shrugged to herself, lifting it to her lips.

"Lisa Turres, if you are still at the muggle store could you pick me up half a dozen muggle notebooks please?" She said clearly. The ring flashed cold, then returned to normal. About ten minutes later, her ring flashed cold again and she lifted it to her lips to hear the message.

"Wire bound or book bound?" Came Lisa's voice, soft as though she were trying not to be overheard. Cassie lifted the ring again.

"Lisa Turres, book bound please. Thanks," she said, chuckling at the image of Lisa in a muggle store talking to her hand. Hopefully she had gone somewhere like the bathroom or a changing room to use the ring.

By lunch time, Cassie had found four or five new charms to try. Using the rings while she had been thinking had led her to the idea of using the same sort of charm on the books. It couldn't be exactly the same, it would be a bit of an inconvenience if you had to press the notebook to your lips to get it to work. Maybe she could tweak the charm so that it would work with finger prints instead. Muggles always said that every finger print was unique. Or maybe she could charm the books to bind with a persons magical aura, those were all unique as well.

She finally set aside her books a little after noon and got up to start putting together some sandwiches. She moved the table back to it's place and sent her books back to her room, then made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Orion, and two turkey and cheese ones for herself and Lisa, who should be home any moment.

"Orion," she called. "Time for lunch, go wash your hands." She could hear him running to the bathroom on the other side of the flat, so she didn't call again. She listened as he dragged out the stool meant for his use that they kept beside the sink, then as the water turned on, then off, and the stool was moved back. Then he ran into the kitchen. "You shouldn't run inside," she said as he climbed into his chair. "You might trip and fall."

"Okay," he said, beginning to eat the sandwich. She shook her head with a smile. He was only agreeing so easily because he knew if he was bad they wouldn't go to the park.

"Just on time," Cassie said as the front door opened to admit Lisa. She put the other sandwiches onto plates at the table, then watched Lisa take shrunken bags from her jeans pocket and return them to normal size. Cassie, who ate half her sandwich while Lisa was doing this, got up to help put things away.

"I got a couple different kinds of notebooks for you, they were very cheap," Lisa said, sitting down at the table as Cassie put the potion ingredients into the shelf of small containers meant for them. "I assumed you are inventing again."

"Good thinking," Cassie said, sitting back down. "Different types will probably help."

"So you'll never guess who I ran into at the apothecary," Lisa said, biting into her sandwich. "You remember that guy I met at the bar a few days ago? Well he works at the quidditch place next door. He invited me out again sometime."

"That's great," Cassie said, grinning. "What's his name?"

"Lee Jordan," Lisa said, smiling. "He's friends with your boyfriend."

"George isn't my boyfriend," Cassie said, chuckling.

"He will be," Lisa said, grinning.

"I doubt it," Cassie said, shaking her head. "Anyway, we are going to the park. Want to come?"

"I'll pass," Lisa said, standing up and taking her plate and Cassie's to the sink. "Those muggle women are… unpleasant."

"They aren't that bad," Cassie said, but both of them could tell she was lying. "Orion, wipe off your hands then go get your coat."

"But it's hot out," he wined, jumping down from his chair and going over to the towel hanging off the front of the oven.

"Get your coat anyway," she said, chuckling. "Just in case it rains."

"Yes mum," he said, running into his room. She got up, stretched, and went to find her normal muggle purse that was still charmed, but full of things that could have easily fit into it normally, rather then her smaller, obviously magical bag. She had a few toys of Orion's inside in case he got bored with the sand pit and other play equipment. She also had a rubber ball, in case he wanted to play with that. She had sunscreen, an umbrella, insect repellent, a comb, and some muggle wet wipes inside too. She had never needed to use anything besides the wet wipes, but she liked to have it all there just in case. She tucked one of her books into it as well, charming the cover to a muggle subject so she could read it at the park.

"Alright," she said, leaving her room. "Lets go." Orion handed her his long rain coat to carry, then took off to the door and down the long hallway between their flat and the door leading downstairs. The first three levels of the building were muggle businesses of some kind, and the hallway from their flat down to the street had only white, windowless doors that were locked at all times, which was why they felt safe apparating into the hallway. There were no other apartments above them, so no one else ever came up.

"Wait for me," Cassie called down the hallway. She knew he would anyway but she always worried. He might be able to do a lot of things by himself, but dressing and going down stairs were two things he always needed help with. She caught up to him and hoisted her bag over her shoulder, then grabbed his hand and helped him down the stairs. With the use of the railing, and her helping him keep balance, he made it down all four four flights of stairs without injury. She clung onto his hand as they went out onto the muggle street. It wasn't crowded, but it wasn't empty either, and she was still nervous of him being around those muggle vehicles.

"Okay," she said, pulling him to a stop as the park came into view. "Remember, no talking about magic at all. And no leaving the grassy area. If you misbehave we won't come back for the rest of the month."

"I know mommy," he said, looking up at her with serious eyes.

"Good," she said, tugging him back into walking. At the park, the smaller kids section was towards the back, away from the road, so she led him across the grass to it, picking a bench a ways away from the other mothers. "I'll be over here if you need anything." She pointed to the bench. "Be nice."

He reached up and gave her a hug, then ran over to the sand pit where a few other kids were playing. She smiled as she sat down on the bench, watching him immediately be accepted into the group.

After a few minutes of watching, she reached into her bag and pulled out her book and began to read. She glanced up every few minutes to make sure he was still there and playing nicely.

A screech pulled her attention to the kids again, and she frowned, not immediately spotting Orion. The book was down and she was on her feet within a second, approaching the sand pit as a familiar cry reached her ears. She swooped down, picking up Orion from the middle of a knot of children, most of whom were simply trying to see what had happened, but one boy nearby looked smug.

She sat Orion down on the grass, looking him over. His pants were ripped and he had skinned his knee. She rested her hand over the small wound without a second thought, healing it silently, then she pulled him onto her lap until he stopped crying.

"What happened?" She asked, her voice soothing as she wiped the tears off his face.

"Liam pushed me," Orion said, his voice wavering as he leaned into her. She smoothed his hair back.

"Why did he push you?" She asked. She hadn't seen the whole thing, but she had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Liam, the larger dark haired boy who had looked smug, had bullied Orion before.

"He wanted the shovel," Orion said. "But it was my turn."

"Would you like to play with your ball instead?" She asked, gesturing to her bench where her purse still sat. He shook his head.

"Well how about you go play on the playground then?" She asked, and he nodded, but didn't make a move to get up. She knew that anything she said to the other boy would just be rebuked by his mother, and the other mothers, she had tried it before. She gave Orion a hug, then stood with him in her arms and walked to the playground, setting him gently on the grass and kneeling down so she was level with him as he wiped his eyes on the backs of his hands.

The other kids had gone back to playing in the sandbox, and the group of mothers that had been rude to Cassie before were standing nearby, still clucking to each other, though they were quieter than usual. She realized they were watching her to see if she would try to discipline the other boy. She knew that would be useless though. The child wouldn't listen to her, and it would start the mothers off at her again.

"Go on and play, I'll be on the bench," she said softly to Orion.

"But I don't understand," he said, his voice louder than hers. The clucking mothers fell silent. "Why did he push me?" Cassie couldn't resist the perfect opportunity that had presented itself. She leaned away from him a little, making her voice just loud enough for the others to hear.

"Well, Orion, some people are too stupid to know that they should teach their children manners," she said. She heard a muttering break out behind her and smiled to herself. Orion's eyes widened and he leaned in.

"Mama, you said we aren't supposed to call people stupid," he said, whispering to her.

"Well when someone is mean to my child that gives me permission to be mean back. But you are only allowed to do that when people are mean to your children," she said to him. "Go play."

She got to her feet as he nodded. She really should have just ignored them, she knew that, but the mother of the bully child hadn't even bothered to talk to him about pushing, and she hated seeing Orion cry. She turned to walk past the group of middle aged women to her bench, which someone else was sitting at now that she took the time to look. It was a male, around her age, and he was watching her with a raised brow as he lounged back against the bench.

"Slut," she heard muttered from one of the women as she walked past them. Her eyes narrowed but she kept walking, ignoring them this time.

"That was a fancy bit of magic you did," the man said as she sat down on the other end of the bench, pulling her things towards her.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said with a sniff, picking her book back up.

"Experimental Charms: A Word Study," he said, and she automatically flipped the book shut to make sure the cover was still glamoured, then she frowned at him as she saw that it was. She took a moment to look him over. His eyes were a much colder grey than hers, and his blonde hair was swept back from his face, as though he ran his hands through it continuously. He was wearing very upscale muggle clothes, not exactly suited for going out to parks.

"Who are you?" She asked, her voice low. "Why are you here?"

"My cousin wanted to go to the park," he said, shrugging and gesturing to the children in the sand box. "And it's my day to watch him."

"I see," she said, frowning. She immediately picked out the child that must be related to this man. The child had the exact same shade of blonde hair, growing exactly the same way. And his eyes were the exact same color as this mans.

"Those muggles are disgusting," he said, his voice a sneer. She eyed him again, frowning. She knew that many wizards in Britain disliked muggles, that was what their war was fought over after all.

"They aren't so bad," she said carefully, watching his reaction. He rolled his eyes then swept them over the immediate area again.

"They don't care about their children," he said, and she relaxed, seeing that he wasn't one of those pureblood elitist types. "Not once has any of them stopped talking long enough to pay attention to them, except when they saw you approaching, and even then they didn't listen to the kids, they listened to you."

"They dislike me," she said, shrugging, but now that she watched them, she could see what he meant. None of the women were looking at the children, and whenever the kids came over to them, they were quickly sent back to the playground. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't," he said shortly, eyes on the children in the sand pit. They were trying to build a castle, but the dry sand didn't hold very well, so it turned into building the highest pile.

"I haven't seen you here before, is this the first time you've come here?" She asked, trying to politely keep up the conversation.

"Yes," he said. "Usually when Teddy comes to my flat we just stay in."

"Do you live around here?" She asked, curious.

"Yes," he said, again speaking shortly, as though he didn't want to be talking to her. She fell silent, not wanting to annoy him. She watched Orion run over the foot high bridge connecting two sections of play equipment. It seemed they were playing some sort of game that involved not touching the ground. After a few minutes he spoke again. "What's your name? I don't remember you from school."

"I moved to Australia when I was eight, so I didn't go to Hogwarts," she said. "And it's hardly fair for me to tell you my name when you won't tell me yours."

"Draco Malfoy," he said, his voice quiet, as though he were going to be attacked for saying it.

"Cassie Black," She said, smiling a little, though she didn't turn to look at him.

"Black?" He asked, surprised. She did turn at that, tilting her head to the side a little.

"Yes?" She said, the word twisting into a question. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No," he said, shaking his head and looking back over the playground. "I suppose it's a fairly common last name. Are you related to the pureblood family of the Blacks?"

"Why does that matter?" She asked, her eyes narrowing. He couldn't have cared too much about blood purity, or he wouldn't be in a muggle playground wearing muggle clothing, but something about him put her on edge for some reason.

"My mother was a Black," he said, and she relaxed again. "Narcissa Black."

"Doesn't sound familiar," she said. "My father was named Lycoris Black. He said his father, Alphard, was disowned from the family and he never really talked about them. He died when I was eight, so I don't really know anything about the rest of the family."

"Alphard Black was my grandfather's brother," Draco said, turning to look at her again.

"Well I suppose that would make us cousins then," she said, chuckling at the absurdity of meeting a distant family member at a random muggle park. "Or second cousins maybe."

"Hm," he said, turning away again. She laughed again.

"You sound so thrilled," she explained, when he looked back at her with a brow raised.

"Why aren't you named after a constellation? It's family tradition," he said, frowning. Even the disowned parts of his family that he had met had kept up that tradition.

"My full name is Cassiopeia Lyra Black," she said, frowning at the name. "But it's too long. So I go by Cassie."

"I see," he said, turning away.

"Is it really tradition? The whole family is named after stars?" She asked a moment later, too curious to keep quiet. Her father had barely spoken of the rest of the family. He was mad that they had disowned his father, and she had been too young to be really curious. "I thought it was just something my grandpa did. I never met him, he died before I was born."

"The whole family," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching up slightly. "Well, except for Teddy, he's the first, but I can't really blame my cousin for that. The family disowned her mother too."

"Aren't you not supposed to speak to disowned family members?" She asked curiously.

"It doesn't matter," he said, shrugging nonchalantly, though his voice was tight. "I'm the only one left in the family now, besides my mother, and she decided she would rather talk to her sister again than keep ignoring her."

"I'm sorry," she said, not knowing what else to say. It didn't matter though because at that moment, the little blonde boy came running over to Draco, holding a rock and grinning.

She watched curiously as the man beside her relaxed a little, almost seeming to grow softer as he leaned forward to see what the boy was carrying.

"Uncle Drake," the boy said, holding the rock proudly. "Look what I did." He opened his hands to show Draco the rock, which was a normal looking brown one at first, but then it began to sparkle subtly, then it flashed for a moment, before falling back to the normal plain brown.

"Very cool," Draco said, ruffling the boys hair. "But you can't do that with muggles around, remember?"

The boy nodded, peering over at Cassie with a guilty look on his face. When he spotted her watching he turned back to his uncle, panicked.

"Uncle Drake! I think that muggle saw me," he looked so upset by the idea, and scared, as though he knew he was in trouble.

"This isn't a muggle," Draco said, gesturing to Cassie. "This is our cousin Cassie."

"We have more cousins?" The boy asked excitedly, dropping the rock and looking over at Cassie again, who smiled at him.

"She just came here from Australia," Draco said, his voice much softer than Cassie would have guessed it could be from their earlier conversation. He must really care for the child.

"Hello," she said, leaning down a little. "What's your name?"

"I'm Teddy," the boy said, holding his hand out. She grinned at his formality and shook the tiny hand. "Are you really my cousin? How come you haven't come over before?" He looked to be a little older than Orion, who was two months away from turning three.

"Yes, I'm your cousin," she said. "I didn't know I had any cousins here till today."

"We have lots of cousins, but they aren't real cousins. There's cousin Vic, and cousin Dom, but she's just a baby," the boy said, rattling off people Cassie had no idea about. "And uncle Percy and aunt Audrey said I'll have another cousin in a few months."

"His godfathers wife has a very large family," Draco explained, his lips pursed a little.

"Well you have another cousin too, would you like to meet him?" Cassie asked the boy, who's eyes grew wide in excitement as he nodded furiously. "I'll go get him."

She stood, going over to the playground equipment to hunt down the child. He was hiding underneath one of the short slides.

"Orion, come here a moment," she said, holding a hand out to him.

"Sh mum," he said, whispering loudly. "I'm hiding."

"Don't you want to meet your cousin?" She asked.

"I have a cousin?" He asked, immediately forgetting the game and grabbing on to her hand. She lifted him, situation him over her hip as she walked back to her bench.

"Yes," she said, smiling. "I just met them today."

"This is my son, Orion," she said, introducing him to the others as she sat back down, letting him wriggle free to stand beside her. He stood with her legs between him and the other boy, who was also watching him curiously. "Ri, this is Draco, and Teddy."

"Hi Orion," Teddy said after a short hesitation. "Want to come play with me?"

Orion nodded, and the two took off back towards the sand pit. Cassie watched him go, smiling.

"So he's your son?" Draco asked after a moment of silence.

"Yep," she said, her tone light. "That's why the other mum's don't like me. They think I'm too young to have a child."

"That's stupid," he said, rolling his eyes, and she relaxed a little, glad he wasn't going to start berating her. "A hundred years ago people got married when they were fourteen and they managed to keep their kids alive." She laughed at that.

"I hadn't thought of that," she said, smiling now. "So what do you do for a living?"

"I've been working at the apothecary in Diagon Alley for the last year or so," he said. "I brew the potions they sell there."

"That's wonderful," she said. "I think I may have tried to find a job in potion making if I hadn't found the joke shop."

"You work at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes?" He asked, his mouth turning into a frown. His voice sneered a little, but she ignored that.

"No, not really," she said, shrugging. "I make things, I'm particularly good at Charms. George, the owner of the shop, liked a few of the things I've made and he offered to sell them in the shop."

"You're an inventor?" He asked, surprised.

"Yes," she said, smiling. "I just make little things really." She explained her bracelet and ring, and the tag necklaces."

"That bracelet sounds like seriously complicated charm work," he said, turning it over in his fingers. She had taken it off for him to look over. "Are you sure it works?"

"I tested it," she said. "It worked to find him when he had just started walking and wandered out of the yard, and it told me when he fell and hit his head a few months ago. The apparition part works even when he isn't hurt though, I tried it when I first invented it."

"Well I am impressed," he said, handing it back to her. She put it on, securing the clasp, then rested her left hand over it to recast the charm that would keep it from falling off or breaking. "Can you explain to me how that… glove wand works?"

The two of them spent the next two hours talking about various magics, and a little about their shared family tree.

"Mum, I'm hungry," Orion said, interrupting their conversation. "Can we go home?"

"Yes," she said, slipping her book back into her bag.

"Can Teddy come?" He asked, pulling the other boy over to him. Cassie looked down at Draco and tilted her head slightly.

"You and Teddy are welcome to come over for an early dinner if you would like to," she said.

"Can we please Uncle Drake?" Teddy asked, pulling on the other mans arm until he finally stood with a groan.

"I suppose," he said, smiling a little at the boys eagerness. "Thank you for the invitation," he said to Cassie. She just smiled and grabbed Orion's hand.

"Mum can you carry me, I'm tired," the boy said, whining a little. She rolled her eyes, but hoisted him into her arms, settling him over a hip again.

"We live a few blocks that way," she said, gesturing down the street. Draco nodded, holding Teddy's hand as he walked beside her in silence.

They didn't talk on the way to her flat, or on the way up the stairs.

"Oh, I probably should have warned you that I have flatmates," Cassie said, hearing music coming through the door. It was a little after four, which meant that both the other girls were probably home. The first thing she did when she went through the front door was turn off the wireless radio that was blaring music.

"Hi Cassie," Nicole called through her open bedroom doorway. Lisa, who had been in the kitchen popped her head around the corner.

"Where have you been? I was about to go looking-" she trailed off when she spotted the other two people over Cassie's shoulder.

"Lisa, this is my cousin Draco, and our cousin Teddy," she said, making introductions. "This is Lisa Turres. I invited them to stay for dinner, if that's alright."

"Of course it is," Lisa said. "But aren't you going out?"

"Not till six," Cassie said, shrugging as she walked over to Nicole's doorway. The girl had a habit of not always dressing decently enough for company while she was lounging at home. While the girls didn't care, she knew that Draco would mind, and Nicole would be embarrassed. "We have company," she said to the girl, glad to see she was still wearing her healers robes. Nicole followed her back out of the room.

"These are my cousins, Draco and Teddy," she said. "This is Nicole Diamond."

"Dimond?" Draco asked as he shook her hand. "Are you related to the designer Gabrielle Diamond?"

"She's my mother," Nichole said, grinning.

"My mother orders all her robes from Diamond's Designs," Draco said. "Are you studying to be a healer?"

"Yep," Nichole said proudly. "Still training, as you can see." She gestured to the blue trim.

The two boys had disappeared into Orion's room and were talking loudly about some toy or other. Cassie left the two girls to keep Draco entertained and fished around the refrigerator for something to make. She hadn't planned on having company for dinner, and she didn't plan on eating much of it, since she was going out with George later. She decided on an already assembled and cooked pot roast she had put together a few days ago. Now it would just need heating to be ready. She placed a 'slow-heating' charm on it so that it wouldn't become dry, as it would have with a usual heating charm, then she put some frozen rolls into the oven and pulled out the leftover salad from the night before.

She used another charm to extend the small square table so there was room for two more people, then conjured two more chairs and went about setting the table.

"Mum!" The call came as she was just about to call the others to dinner, and it had a sense of urgency in it, so she hurried to the doorway of Orion's bedroom. Orion was pointing at Teddy's head, which was now covered with bright turquoise colored hair.

"What happened?" She asked, coming into the room. Teddy looked confused as they both stared at him.

"I didn't do it!" Orion exclaimed, but he looked a little guilty. "I just pulled the book away from him, and it changed!"

"Come on," she said, gently pushing the two boys out of the room. "Draco?" She called when they made it to the kitchen. He came in a moment later, followed by Lisa and Nicole, both who burst out laughing at the child's bright hair color. "I'm not sure what happened, but I think I know the charm to fix it. He did my hair pink once by accident."

"Oh," Draco said, then to her surprise he began laughing. "That wasn't accidental magic," he explained. "Teddy's a metamorphmagus. His mum was too."

"A what?" Cassie asked, frowning. She had never heard of that before.

"Metamorphmagus," Draco repeated. "Show her Teddy."

She looked at the boy, only to watch in fascination as his hair changed from turquoise, to brown, to blond, then red, then pink. His eyes changed too, from grey to brown, to green.

"That's amazing," she said, watching as the boy returned his features to blonde and grey eyes.

"He likes to have turquoise hair most of the time," Draco said, chuckling a little. "I made him change it when we went out to the muggle park."

"How do you do that?" Orion asked Teddy as he climbed up into his usual chair. She had made one of the other chairs also have a booster seat so that Teddy would be able to see above the table. "I want blue hair too."

"When you can learn the charm to change your hair color and do it by yourself then you can have any hair color you'd like," Cassie told him, gesturing to the others to sit. As they did so she brought the now fully warmed pot roast dish to the table.

They ate in silence for a while, Cassie skipping the meal to help keep Orion form getting his food everywhere. It was a little after five when Draco and Teddy decided to head home.

"Thanks for coming over," Cassie said, smiling at them. "It was nice to meet you. We will have to get together for a play date again sometime."

"Sure," Draco said. "I think my mother would like to meet you too sometime. I don't think she even knew Alphard had a son."

"Well send me an owl and we can arrange something," she said. "You can apparate from the hallway if you don't want to walk but the apartment is warded."

"Okay," he said, picking up Teddy. "See you later." He said, then walked out the door. A moment later she heard a faint pop of apparition.

"He seems nice," Lisa said as Cassie came back into the kitchen. The other girls had cleaned up the dishes and leftovers, and they had returned the table to it's original size. Orion had gone into his room to play.

"He's very attractive too," Nicole added. Cassie shook her head.

"You think everyone is attractive, Nic," Cassie said.

"Not everybody," she said, chuckling. "But he was seriously hot. I bet he has perfect abs."

"How could you possible know that?" Cassie asked, frowning.

"Just a guess," Nicole said, raising her eyebrows suggestively. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for your date?"

"I was about to," Cassie said. "I'm going to take a quick shower."

"Hurry up," Lisa said. "I'll find some cute shoes for you to wear. And some jewelry."

"Fine," Cassie said, rolling her eyes. She knew better than to argue.

"I have a jacket that'll go perfectly with that dress. It's getting a bit cold out now that the sun is going down," Nicole said. She always knew the temperature outside because she usually let there bedroom window open for her owl to go in and out when it wanted to. Cassie had used a charm to keep the air inside her bedroom inside it, even when the door was open, so the rest of the place didn't get cold.

"Thank you," Cassie said, disappearing into the bathroom.

Half an hour later she was dressed and ready to go, her hair left down in loose waves, courtesy of Lisa.

"Orion, I'm going out for a little while, I'll be back before you go to bed," Cassie said, leaning in the door way. "Be good for Aunt Lisa and Aunt Nicole."

"Okay," he said, not looking up from his toys. "Bye mommy."

"Bye," she said, kissing the top of his head.


End file.
